The Art of Cartooning with Flash: The Twinkle Guide to Flash Character Animation [With CD-ROM]

A few years ago I tried learning Flash animation by using tutorials on the Internet. I learned a little bit, but most of the tutorials weren't concise and they were confusing and usually I found myself aggravated with Flash deeming it was "too complicate to learn." I found this book for $5 and decided to give Flash another try. Gray made this book easily accessible for novices and advanced users alike with clear instructions. Each chapter begins with a few words on the techniques you will learn in that chapter and some tips. Then the rest of the chapter consists of hands-on exercises. Artwork and sample files are included on the CD-Rom if you do not have any original artwork. These exercises are very easy to follow. I completed the first four chapters and I made a short movie with music. That was only two days after reading the chapters. I read the help file about importing music. This topic isn't covered in the first four chapters but it is in later chapters. It does not take hours upon hours to learn Flash animation using this book. Knowing some basics of Flash beforehand will come in handy, though. I highly recommend this book if you want to learn to make Flash animations. You will not regret your purchase!! *The CD-Rom also includes software. Macromedia Flash 5, Adobe Photoshop, Bias Peak VST, Bias Peak LE, Bias Deck, and Sonic Foundry's Sound Forge. Most of the programs are PC & Mac compatible.*

Shows you how to make use and organize symbols. Also some helpful hints and how to make use of alpha and tint functions. I learned how to make use of the transitions and shape tweens in animation very helpful. If only it were more specific on character animation and staging it would get a five star rating.

I can't evaluate this book's value for an expert point of view, since I'm more of a beginer rather than an expert.So, I must 5*-rate it just because it showed me just about everything I should know about animation, but also opens your doors to the world of Cartooning. This is not one of those Dogma-like books where the Universal Solution is the goal.Here you can understand what's going on, and then give your best shot!Sure I wouldn't mind a thing if Gary Leib would have 400 more pages dedicated to the drawing section, but at least I got myself a direction of what steps should I follow, since the amount of information in this kind of mean, is simply staggering (at least I think so).Since I think a book never ends on it's last page, I didn't hesitate and got myself sharing some ideas and feedback with John Kuramoto via email... So, that extra mile gives the 5* status to the book.I'm not saying this is the very best you can find, but it is the best I could find, and I recommend it.Conclusion:Go for it! And if you don't like it at all, you can always cross the ocean and beat me ;-)

This book will help with putting together a better Flash cartoon. The book is fairly well organized and the content inside is all relevant to making a Flash cartoon. I liked that there wasn't a lot of fluff.The Art of Cartooning with Flash goes through the process of cartooning the way the Twinkleland Studio does it. It's a third theory about animation and cartooning, a third tutorials and disecting one of their cartoons step-by-step.Positives:It starts off by saying it's an intermediate book and it hits the mark.It didn't go through how to use Flash's drawing tools and beginner level stuff which is a lot of filler if you know how to use the program.Their tricks and examples on how to do a walk cycle was very informative.Their theory portion of the book is really good.The book tries to raise the bar on making better flash cartoons and gives examples how, treating the cartoon more like a movie.The artwork is pretty good.It really focuses on traditional animation and applying it to Flash.Negatives:Some of the tutorials are difficult to follow. The screenshots were a little small, and wasn't 100% step by step, which made it a little confusing.The theory was good, but maybe at the expense of more Flash content. I thought there needed to be much more on lip syncing and facial animation (not a lot of information on both aspects of this book)The book is an odd shape, and makes it difficult to fit properly in a standard bookshelf (being a little picky)They only showed the method of animating a character on seperate layers, not the method of grouping in a hierachy on the same layer.The actionscripting portion of the book is limited, and is in Flash 4 context, still using Tell Target. They should have updated this to Flash 5.A portion of the book was animating a one legged robot. Robots are very boring to animate and always easier than human or moster characters.This book is not the perfect Flash cartooning book. (When will there be one???) Nor should it be the first Flash cartooning book you buy. It is a good reference book and complementary book, especially for the tricks with a walk cycle and the theory portion. This book is worth buying if you're considering making a real effort to put together a better Flash cartoon. I think it's worth 3.5 to 4 stars.Other cartooning books I've read and bought:Flash 5 Cartooning:My first Flash cartooning book I read. It taught me the basics, was a little pricey. The artwork was bad, and they used a robot to animate the walk cycle. Definately a beginner book, okay value.Flash 5 Cartoons and Games:My second Flash cartooning book I read. Better than Fash 5 cartooning because it covered more, at the same level. It also covered rotoscoping and lip sync better than any Flash cartooning book yet. I got the most value from the cd where a complete cartoon was included, complete with a very good preloader. Pretty good value.Flash Character Animation: Applied Studio Techniques:Very poor value. STAY AWAY! This b